


post-apocalyptic dashcam footage

by shella688



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Beholding!Jon, Body Horror, Friendship, Gen, Hunt!Daisy, Minor Violence, Post-Apocalypse, Road Trips, What more can I say, look its jon + daisy on a road trip killing monsters, there is one (1) angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-17 22:15:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21650644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shella688/pseuds/shella688
Summary: somaybethe apocalypse has come andperhapsthere are fear monsters roaming the streets andsuresometimes it all seems hopelessbut there's a breeze coming through the open windows and the road beneath the wheels is all the permission they need and, really, it could be so much worse
Relationships: Jonathan Sims & Alice "Daisy" Tonner
Comments: 30
Kudos: 161
Collections: Rusty Quill Secret Santa 2019





	post-apocalyptic dashcam footage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [indefensibleselfindulgence](https://archiveofourown.org/users/indefensibleselfindulgence/gifts).



> This was written for the [Rusty Quill Secret Santa 2019](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/rustyquillsanta19) \- huge thanks to the organisers you all did great
> 
> It's set at some unspecified point post-MAG160

**Day 1**  
Daisy breaks into the van with disconcerting ease. She claims the driver seat before Jon can even think to challenge her.

"Don't just hover out there Jon. And," she adds, seeing his expression, "don't look so shocked."

"Just never thought I'd see the day an ex-police commits car theft," he responds lightly.

"It's not car theft if it's a van. Besides, I was sectioned; they let me do anything so long as they didn't have to know. And which of us intentionally found a vehicle with the keys left in the ignition?"

Jon lets out a small laugh as he climbs in. She does have a point.

"Seatbelt."

"Daisy I can't die anymore. Neither can you."

"Yeah, but if we crash and you fly through the windscreen I'm not lugging your mangled body around with me." He complains, but when at last Jon's risk of flying out any windows has been sufficiently reduced, she continues.  
"Where to first?"

His voice is hollow, echoing slightly, as he speaks.  
"A Lidl, ten minutes that way, it hasn't been too badly looted."

There's a glint in Daisy's eyes as she heads out.

**Day 4**  
There was a reason Daisy refused to let Jon drive at first and this is it.

"Watch the road!"

"I _am_ Watching it!" Jon protests, then curses as he slams on the brakes, narrowly avoiding a stray dog.

"I meant properly watch, with the eyes on your face. It's the apocalypse - do I really have to teach you how to drive?"

"You're not the one dealing with multiple fields of vision," he mutters.

The van engine revs and then they're moving again at a noticeably slower rate. For a moment they sit in companiable silence.

"Hey Jon?"

"Mmm?"  
Jon looks over at her, then pointedly raises his right hand. The eye on its back blinks once.  
"It's fine. My eye is on the road."

"Both hands on the wheel," Daisy comments absently, then: "That's what I was wondering. How many of those you have now?"

There's a pause as he counts.  
"Seven? Six, maybe. Do two iris and pupils on the same eyeball count separately?"

"Don't ask me - you're the Watcher's pupil."

"Daisy was that a _joke_?"

"What can I say? I'm hilarious."

**Day 10**  
Jon looks disapprovingly in the back of the van.  
"It's not the most comfortable thing I've seen."

'It' refers to the ratty mattress laid out in the back, scrounged from a skip somewhere that Jon's trying _really_ hard not to think about. There's a mound of pillows and blankets in one corner, liberated from an Asda a few days back. Daisy seems proud of her creation.

"It's better than sleeping in the seats." She flops down, sending up a small cloud of dust. "Care to join me?"

Jon clambers over the front seats, collapsing next to her. He makes a quiet _hmm_ sound.  
"Life of luxury, this is."

Daisy whacks him - he yelps slightly when her claws catch his injured shoulder.

"If you'd like to sleep on the floor like we did at first back in London then I won't stop you." She pauses. "How are they doing? The others - Martin, Melanie... Basira."

Jon's voice takes on that familiar hollowness.  
"They're- they're doing alright. Their safehouse is up and running, no injuries so far thank God. Georgie yelled at a Lonely avatar so much they actually apologised to her."

Daisy barks out a laugh.  
"Good for her!" A beat, then: "I still can't believe it took three weeks of hiding from the police up in Scotland to get you and Martin to admit your feelings for each other."

"Hey!" he protests. "You and Basira weren't much better!"

"What? Jon, we've been together since before I knew you."

" _What_?"

"I called her my partner!"

"I thought you meant police part- oh. _Oh_."

A well-aimed pillow hits him square in the face.

**Day 19**  
"This is the van they based the Mystery Machine on," Jon says, apropos of nothing.

Daisy raises an eyebrow.  
"Slow day for the Eye, huh?"

He gives this statement more thought than it probably deserved.  
"I guess it's got less to watch, what with us going around hunting all these fear creatures."

" _We're_ not hunting anything. After that incident with the crab _you've_ been relegated to glorified sat-nav and are banned from getting out."

"It was a big crab!"

She just shrugs, drumming out a sharp beat on the wheel. It's fast and getting faster - if Jon wasn't already claimed he'd have followed that drum to the ends of the Earth.

"Remember the mechanic?" Jon says suddenly. "The one who checked this over after we rescued her wife? We should have asked her to do the Mystery Machine paint."  
He considers something briefly. "I'd be Velma, you know: 'I can see everything without my glasses'?"

"I don't think that's how-"

"You'd be Scooby Doo of course."

"Jon..."

"Jinkies," he deadpans, not even attempting the American accent.

**Day 26**  
Daisy brings the van to a stop, sniffing the air.  
"You smell that?" she asks, her voice a growl.

"What-" he begins, but then he _Sees_ it. "Desolation avatar 5 o'clock."

And the door slams as Daisy's off, strides lengthening, teeth sharpening. She drops to all fours, huge and monstrous and _hungry_. You could call her a wolf, only then someone might think themself secure in the mistaken familiarity of it.

Jon doesn't need to turn to Watch her tear the wax being apart.

**Day 40**  
It's dark out, which could mean it's night, or could mean they've driven into one of the Dark's new strongholds.

Jon and Daisy lie in the back of the van, staring up at the old metal ceiling.

"Would your eyes shine if I pointed a torch at them?" His arm makes idle circles in the air.

"Yes," she answers without hesitation. "What? Basira and I got bored one time. How did it feel to grow new eyes?"

He thinks for a moment.  
"Meaty but... not unpleasant."

"Hm. Time until we should start looking for a Dark avatar to beat up?"

"If there's no light in three hours we should do something. And hey - that was tw-"

There's a banging on the roof and instantly Daisy's on edge.  
"Vast - I can smell the ozone from here."

She moves to leave, but suddenly Jon Sees something.  
"Wait it's... Simon Fairchild?" He's as a shocked as anyone with revelation.

"Friend of yours?"

"No. Well, he's an avatar from- from before. Spooky old man, uses a cane but doesn't need it. Enjoys jumping out of planes."

"Don't they all."

More banging, on the side of the van this time.  
"Archivist!" shouts a voice muffled by metal and glass. "What the _fuck_ did you do to my sky?"

**Day ??**  
They're low on petrol and have been for a while, but Daisy hasn't said anything and for the past few miles Jon's been debating whether to bring it up.

Finally, he speaks. It's flippant, like he hasn't just been overthinking this.  
"There's a petrol station up ahead that we, uh, should really stop at."

Daisy just grips the steering wheel, saying nothing. Jon laughs nervously to fill the silence.

"The pumps have actual petrol this time - no worms. There are, er, worms in the station itself so we can't leave money but- we wouldn't be paying anyway, right?"  
He's babbling and knows it.

All at once he's cut off when Daisy slams a hand in the wheel, snarling.

"Daisy are- is everything okay?" Jon's voice is soft.

She inhales shakily.  
"Can you not feel it? _Watching us_?"

"That's probably me. I'm... I'm sorry." Jon glances over, but can't determine what she's thinking and, right now, he doesn't want to Look.

"No it's not you - I know what that feels like. This is different- more intense. It's _digging_ in the back of my skull and it doesn't care about me, or us, or this whole situation - not properly. It's just there, _watching_ like- like some goddamned post-apocalyptic dashcam footage!"

A pause, heavy with silence.

Then finally Daisy laughs, the near hysterical laugh of someone who's stood too far away to do anything but watch as the world burns, hoping against the odds something will grow in the ashes.

And then Jon joins in, laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. They've seen mannequins wearing human skin and the shadows of impossibly huge creatures in the sea and, yes, worms in the petrol pumps. They've mourned dead innumerable and yet -

They're laughing, because there is no-one to say they can't. They laugh because the world's ending, has ended, and nothing and everything matters now. It's just the two of them and their van, the open road, and whatever waits for them across the horizon of this dying world.

Their lives are a knife edge, and maybe tomorrow they'll fall, but today they laugh as they dance.

**Day ?? + 8**  
"I'm fairly certain sleeping back there whilst I'm driving breaks multiple laws."

Jon gets a groggy moan in reply. He checks the mirror and sees Daisy turn herself to look in his general direction, one arm across her eyes to block out the light.

"Mr Sims," she mumbles. "The court wishes to remind you that, on day one of these proceedings, you ascertained that neither of us could die. Do you still hold to that statement?"

He is very tempted to parrot back her response from all that time ago - but something gives him pause.

"Hey Daisy?"

There's a long pause before her sleepy "Yes?" and Jon almost thinks she's fallen back asleep.

"How long have we been travelling for?"

Daisy adjusts her position again, sitting up to look him dead in an eye.  
"You really think I've been keeping track? Knowing things is your one job."

"No, just- it's been eight days since I stopped counting. I guess it doesn't matter much now - time, I mean. So long as we h-"

He's cut off as he slams a hand on the horn, making a comical _honk_.

"We need a more vicious horn," Daisy remarks. "What is it?"

"Someone decided to open a hole to the Buried in the middle of the road."

"Stay here, I'll fight it."

"Daisy you can't fight the ground!"

"And honking your horn will he-"

A squeaky _honk_ interrupts. She glares at Jon, then starts to speak again.

Another _honk_.

"Jon!"

"Sorry, I can't hear you!" Jon's shouting. They both are, trying to be heard above the noise. "Some idiot's leaning on his car horn."

**Day ???**  
"We safe to stop here?" Daisy asks, stopping the van anyway.

"This part of the forest belongs to the Spiral- no, the Distortion specifically. Don't go down any winding paths I guess, but the road should be fine." Jon's voice echoes, but then it does that more often than not now.

"Good enough for me." She shrugs, then swings the door open and starts climbing up and out.

"Hey! Where are you going?"

"The roof. It's a nice night and we're probably safer than we have been for a while. I'll give you a hand up?"

Jon huffs something about how he's 'not the one with supernatural strength Daisy' but accepts her outstretched hand regardless.

And it is a nice night. The trees rustle gently - signs of life, still going on, all around them. In the distance, a fox screeches; an owl hoots surprisingly close by.

They sit together on that roof, millions of stars spilled in the void above them. It's calm as they watch the darkening sky, breathing in that still air, and the millions of stars watch back.


End file.
